Fired IT Guy Sticks Porn into CEO’s PowerPoint Presentation

It may have been the most unexpectedly sexy PowerPoint presentation about a substance abuse center’s achievements ever witnessed. But then, most PowerPoint presentations about substance abuse don’t feature pornographic images, to the best of my knowledge.

Walter Powell, a 52 year old former director of management information systems at Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and three years of probation (in addition to a two year suspended sentence) earlier this week.

“It happened one day last year, as more than a dozen board members of a Baltimore substance abuse center had gathered around a conference room. The CEO was giving a PowerPoint presentation on his accomplishments.

Suddenly, his computer shut down, then restarted, replacing the latest slide with an image of a naked woman onto a 64-inch screen. The board members include city officials and foundation heads and is chaired by Baltimore’s health commissioner.”

Powell had installed keystroke recording software on the BSAS computers, obtained network passwords of at least five BSAS employees and not only forwarded confidential emails to others, but also composed fake messages while using the email account belonging to BSAS CEO Greg Warren.

All in all, Powell’s quiet reign of hacking terror lasted 32 days before his arrest. As part of his sentencing on Tuesday, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdock barred Powell from going near BSAS facilities or the home of Warren, as well as possessing remote-access software. She probably made sure to change her own computer passwords as well, just in case Powell continued to take bad news as poorly as he’d demonstrated in the past.